/// Aiming for “Functional Coherence,” Mulling a Single P&L and With Advice From Ford CEO, Microsoft Restructuring Set for Thursday

According to numerous sources close to the situation, Microsoft’s Steve Ballmer is poised to unveil his plan to drastically restructure the tech giant this week. And, while timing might change, sources said that the current plan is to make it public on Thursday. A number of issues are still up in the air, due to the close-to-the-vest planning by Ballmer over the major reorg — which has caused a not inconsiderable amount of nervousness on the part of top execs at Microsoft. As has been much reported here and elsewhere, he is expected to organize the company around services — or software — and devices, both in the consumer and business sectors. Ballmer had telegraphed this intent in his shareholder letter last fall. The effort, said many insiders who have talked to Ballmer, is to create something that is being called “functional coherence” at the company. That also includes putting more wood behind fewer efforts and eliminating overlapping functions. In theory, it presumably means things going where they belong in product cycle. In practice, which is a lot messier, that means moving a lot of important people around. As as been reported by Bloomberg and earlier, in part, on AllThingsD.com , top jobs in the new structure are going to a number of longtime high-ranking execs. That includes a new cloud computing and business-focused products unit headed by current Servers & Tools head Satya Nadella; Online Services leader Qi Lu could add Microsoft Office and other apps to his portfolio that already includes the Bing search service; Julie Larson-Green, who now co-heads Windows efforts, is in line to be in charge of all devices from Surface to Xbox, as well as music and TV services; and Windows Phone chief Terry Myerson is expected to take over Windows engineering and platforms. Meanwhile, Windows CFO and CMO Tami Reller is expected to have a larger marketing job; and current Skype president Tony Bates gets purview over all of business development, corporate strategy and M&A, playing the role of outside guy to Silicon Valley and developers (complete with a giant checkbook for acquisitions and other investments). It’s not clear where Microsoft Office president Kurt DelBene or Microsoft Business Solutions president Kirill Tatarinov could land in the new set-up, but presumably either out the door or under new units headed by Qi Lu (DelBene) and Satya Nadella (Tatarinov), respectively. As to the fate of COO Kevin Turner, sources expect he’ll stay (at least until he is offered a tasty and big operationally-heavy CEO job outside the company).

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Talk NYC/WW is your daily download of the tech, marketing and advertising news you need to know. It’s smartly curated to keep you up to speed on the innovators and innovations that are shaking up the digital world today.